Last week, I wrote about how the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism is real and troubling, but that there are times, such as at the University of Vermont, when the delineation between valid critiques and genuine bigotry is laid bare.
Another example of this phenomenon has occurred at the University of California at Berkeley, one of the usual suspects, where nine groups in the law school have amended their bylaws, in coordination with Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine (BLSJP), to ensure that no pro-Israel speaker will ever be allowed to address their respective groups.
Under the new guidelines, “90 percent or more” of Jewish students, as well as law-school dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a notable critic of Israeli policy, would be barred from addressing these organizations. Kenneth Marcus, the founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and a Berkeley Law alumnus, has stated that this is “not just a political stunt. It is tinged with antisemitism and anti-Israel national origin discrimination.”
Marcus is spot-on. Left-wing hypocrisy abounds. If progressives are serious about upholding civil-rights law, they wouldn’t be engaging in these blatant acts of discrimination. Everyone is free to denounce the Jewish State for any of its supposed sins. But once a public university permits student organizations to bar speakers of certain ethnicities and national origin, the threshold of illegality has been crossed.
What’s most ironic is that, even though pro-Palestine groups claim that their capacity to express their views has historically been suppressed, they now seem intent on giving the Zionists a “taste of their own medicine.” Apparently, self-awareness is not a prerequisite for joining organizations toeing the BLSJP line. There is no logic to illiberalism of this sort — only prejudice and intimidation.